


The Muted and the Hungry

by GothicSeer



Category: Among Us (Video Game)
Genre: Betrayal, Eldritch, Gen, Gore, Isolation, Silence, dereality, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26812222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothicSeer/pseuds/GothicSeer
Summary: Long-gone is the ship, thus long-gone is time and a clear reality, the bleak vacuum of space stealing away any hope to truly retain either, though it tends to steal much more in those few moments when you do not look, when even later, you never think to look.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	The Muted and the Hungry

**Author's Note:**

> Please be careful in reading this if you are sensitive to unreality! This work was mainly based on how my mind has been processing COVID-19 isolation paired with funny little spacemen going brrr.

The helmet’s visor tapped itself against the other in an affectionate manner, a bright grin breaking out on the face of the one receiving the affection, a blush of fairy dust sprinkling itself across his cheeks as his companion’s hands rose to brush his covered arms, to pull him into a hug, a tight, gentle squeeze before breaking it off by taking a step back, arms dropping down before the affection could be returned or even properly felt.

Days, maybe hours, maybe months, or years, or weeks, passed by; it was nigh impossible to tell in the void of space, though even more so in a masquerade of coloured suits adorning only the slightest customizations. Even if time stagnated, even if monotonous tasks filled their lives day in and day out, surely no bonds would be to change. The crew was as tightly knit as could be, some intentions of affection and romance even passing between a few of the colours, as they began to call each other in a joking manner, though in a manner that became a habit, and habit to actuality. Blue to Brown, a name to another name that didn’t quite matter in an expanse of nonsense existence. That would make a fair example, Blue to Brown. An odd romance, one would think, but it wasn’t really true.

Voice, similarly, had fallen into a nothing communication. It was a pleasantry to hear one another during meetings or other essential talks, though hands and vague motions, or vague actions, maybe clear actions, had taken a larger popularity. The silence was choking, but no effort was made to break it. Why was that? Blue didn’t know, though on any land he was always the centre of attention, the loudest of a group. His nothing silence perturbed him, but he couldn’t bring himself to break it. It felt wrong, what would it bring?

A familiar ring called through the ship, alerting the crewmates of a new day. Or a day, figuratively. A new moment, mayhaps, or a new time to work, to fit it like a glove that was not much unlike the suits that the colours represented themselves with. Blue and Brown gazed at each other for a moment, or so it was assumed as their visors held each other’s irises, their shining surfaces reflecting any hope of seeing what was underneath, though another person would be, no doubt, or so would it be no doubt to Blue. He raised his hand in a wave that was swiftly, stiffly received. And Blue exited their chamber, Brown to follow after and begin his own work, both committing to a strange, drifting dwelling on the ship with their jobs. 

They changed “daily”—an unrefreshing concept that still held no meaning, regardless of application—but that didn’t mean that they weren’t the same. Repair things, clean things, swipe things, press buttons. Child’s play, simply put, child’s play to their conditioned minds. But of course, it would be worth it, in time. When their destination was reached. When would that be? At a time, one could swear there was a counter upon their ship that told this data, that spoke it clearly. Days, minutes, location, time, year, ETA, what happened to it? Was it a joke, a passing dream? The mere consideration of it being an actuality was a joke, it felt. The colours had been drifting in space, they had no such information. Had they? How could they know, if their memories, too, faded into a nothing silence? Which would be a begging kindness, to have memories that were silenced. That was true, though, Blue felt though could not tell why, some nothingness consuming his memories, yet some inherent offness read the same. Wasn’t it so convenient that his memories failed him to speak the truth in utter silence and anonymity? Maybe that was a false hope, something of sparking madness. 

Yet again, with denial, it was impossible to think that the crew didn’t feel the same way. What about Brown? With his affections, had they been some action to attempt at firmly grasping to their present as an anchor? Blue didn’t know, to be frank, and all the thought was giving him a headache as he could feel his heart begin to beat within his mind, breath heavy within his helmet. He shook it as if to chase off those thoughts. Focus. Focus and work, he forced himself to feel and think. Focus and work. So he did.

Electrical to Admin, back to Electrical to the Cafeteria, then to the Reactors. Download things, swipe cards, play silly games that felt so pointless. Same tasks as always, he thought, whatever “always” was. How much had it mattered? He didn’t want it to matter, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that it did. Though thoughts were of little matter when the lights went out, darkness enveloping Blue’s surroundings within the Reactor. He had hoped another crewmate would take care of it, hadn’t he just seen Brown in there earlier? Maybe he was still around. Maybe that was a hope.

Blue finished his present task of plainly tapping buttons in a repeating, sequential order within the Reactors, following sounds he could no longer distinguish in his mind. The lack of light didn’t really bother him, but it was a nuisance since it had only begun happening recently, or so he thought, after a relatively few bumpy moments en route. The ship shuddered, the lights went out. Nothing strange, really. Right? Nay.

He had yet to leave his position, though the lights had been restored and he subconsciously found himself thanking Brown’s presence for it as if he knew he was the one to have solved the issue. His hand fell into the keypad he fiddled with moments ago. Wasn’t it then, wasn’t it only after that period that silence had begun to dominate the ship? That names faded from mind? It felt so, but his memory provided no honesty or truth, it was a blur of mist that he couldn’t even bring himself to look at, but whether he didn’t want to or was unable to, he felt like he would be lying with either response. He did not know the truth, but as his hand ran cold clutching the keypad, he knew that something was off. But that was it, thusly his day was done with that task. What could he say? Report his words, his spoken voice to the crew? To Brown? Turning around, it did not seem as though that was a worry, at least in terms of searching for him, for there he stood, still as he gazed to Blue. And in that moment of meeting, surely eye-to-eye, the lights clicked into a silent nothingness.

Blue, at first, was met with little concern as he approached Brown, though he felt as though his voice was chained to his throat and nowhere else, that he could not vocalize as he so wished to; his voice was trapped in his own helm. Instead, his body, a commonly used thing, then, functioned as a tool. A hand reached out and vaguely brushed Brown’s shoulder in greeting but he did not budge, only staring at Blue. Blue tilted his head, to which Brown then responded by shaking his and taking Blue’s hand into his own, pulling him out of the room. The grasp was firm, too firm, and beneath it Blue could sense moving parts, many, like tongues, shifting below it.

He attempted to withdraw his hand without thought, an automatic, senseless repulsion. He found that, when he could not, Brown’s grip only tightened. He continued pulling him forward, to where neither had known, though both knew where they would be to not go when the lights flickered on, the isolated hallway falling into glaring view.

Fresh crimson spattered the walls, reaching the ceiling, saliva-covered streaks making writhing patches of bloodless wall, mutilated and blood-soaked suit scraps dancing over the floor as a corpse lay collapsed, a hole torn through the stomach of Orange—another person whose name that Blue could not recall—limbs twisting in directions that they could not have been. Their helm rolled to the side, matching the headless form where blood seeped out of an open neck. And of course, so naturally, above them stood White, only hiding herself a moment too late to protect her identity, tongues and tentacles retracting into a prison of a suit as if it had never been torn and fanged, any sign of offness vanishing with a snap. But that meant very little.

What was beneath that suit of Brown had not been him for a long time. How long was a hilarious, unanswerable question. A painful one of ignorance. But it was easy to declare that any time for him to have not been the same was a long time, a long enough time. Whatever was underneath that suit was a tragic, obvious ruse. One that dwelled so recently, so long.

It was no shock, then, to Blue as Brown knocked him to the ground, the crewman only slipping on Orange’s blood as he attempted to fight back and regain his balance, nausea filling his mind as he saw the detached stump that was the base of their head, their still-warm blood beginning to soak into his own suit. Such was fate, but such is not to say that Blue did not attempt to fight.

Such is not to say that, as the tongues and tentacles of Brown unferaled and ripped through his suit, as an eyeless form gazed at him with utter silence, enveloping and piercing Blue’s own, enveloping his arms, caught in its own hesitance for only a moment, that Blue did not struggle. He did, but it was a fruitless thought, he imagined. What would be left, if he survived? Loss? Madness? A spiraling descent, no doubt. 

The tongues curled passed Blue’s arms in his silence, in the deafening silence of the hall, licked his back with another wave of nausea. More tendrils unfurled from Brown’s cloaked form, some reaching out and licking the wall in their excitement, though others ignored the taste and instead punctured Blue’s body, through his stomach, through his heart with a careless ease. And so it was to be over, and so a senseless struggle was to die.

His body, as the task finished, fell to the ground in a heated limp pile, Brown only daring to remain for a moment to lap up his food before skipping away, a suspect to a crime of pawns that would surely be passed down. After all, that is what he had directed the whole time. Three members were already gone, now five, yet with words and names lost, with thought falling to pieces, who would be to determine a thing? Emotions blend, time failed to be present in isolation. It was a simple task and an even simpler act, a little guide to something of a maddeningly delightful meal.


End file.
